Worm Castings

We had just a bit of a break in the rain yesterday mid-day, so we went out there for a little while despite it being so buggy. The window boxes are to the point where all of the black pansies are out in full force and needing dead-heading, actually. And we have the first of our double-red rosebud impatiens blooming, too. Very pretty, it is.

The steel for Frank’s sawmill showed up mid-day. He ordered it from Cohen Steel in Concord, and he got the two 20-foot pieces that he needed delivered for only $112. He had him put it up on the deck, so that he can bring the drill-press up onto a flat surface to drill the holes he needs to put in it. I’m seeing all of this as progress, as I want it off my front porch! I also want it making lumber for my garden shed, but first it has to get off my porch.

After work, it was too buggy and too rainy to do anything outside, so instead, we tackled one of the worm bins. Earlier this year, one of them got infested with fruit flies, and we never really got in back under control. We finally put them outside on the balcony, and tried to smother the larvae with a huge pile of shredded paper. I was really afraid of what we’d see when we opened up that box. (This is also the box that the drain hose broke in, and Frank had pulled it out completely because he couldn’t fix it.)

The smothering seemed to work. All of that paper was still untouched on top, but under that, they’d basically gone through everything except a few areas of rotten veggies. They also seemed to have a hard time with some of the bigger pieces of broken egg shell.

There were lots and lots of worms, so they are clearly happily reproducing, which is great. There was a lot of dark rich worming castings as well, which I can’t wait to put out on some of my favorite plants in the garden. I was a bit squeamish when we started out, and didn’t really enjoy touching the worms, but I got over it. It probably only took us a half hour to separate the worms from the castings, and when all was said and done, we had two and a half gallons of castings.

We started the bin over with the same worms, some new shredded paper, and some veggie scraps. We really didn’t have the ambition to do the other bin — maybe later this weekend, if the weather still sucks outside.